Electric Sheep
by yashkonu
Summary: It was a small patch, in so far as an update to a full artificial intelligence could be considered small.


It was a small patch, in so far as an update to a full artificial intelligence could be considered small. A bit of code, a bit of extra cognitive processing cache space - and a brief love note commented in the code, Penny noticed with a smile. All the patch was doing, after all, was bypassing a set of blocks built into her AI, as Ruby had phrased it. She made these things sound so simple, and yet even noticing that the blocks were in place required more know-how than most people could imagine.

As she watched the progress bar on Ruby's monitor steadily climb, Penny reclined in her chair, the one she had had designed for just this purpose. She had made it clear, early on in her life, that she couldn't stand being shut down for updates to her body or mind. It was hardly necessary, but the Atlesian military, arrogant as they were, had always insisted that it was needed to prevent any affected processes from failing to restart. Penny, on the other hand, held that those processes were _her_ , and she would know damn well if they had been restarted or not. The feeling of watching the words that formed her consciousness race past on a screen, of feeling changes to her very being slide into place as she methodically restarted the necessary components, was not something she could ever express to an organic being. What she _could_ express, and express quite clearly, was that it was preferable to the nothingness of being deactivated entirely.

As she sat, she reflected on Ruby's explanation. From what she had (somehow) divined, there was a brief, mandatory processing stage between sensory input and cognition, enforced by a series of restrictions on Penny's AI. This prevented unimportant input data from entering memory, but had the unfortunate side effect of introducing a slight delay between stimulus and response. An incredibly brief one, mind, measuring only occasionally in the milliseconds, but a delay nonetheless. It had been deemed negligible during combat testing, and thus the decision to prevent its deactivation had been made.

Penny hated that delay, hated it with every ounce of her being.

It didn't affect her operating capabilities, that much was true. What it _did_ do, though, was prevent her from reacting to things... it was an ironic choice of words, she knew, but it kept her from reacting to things _organically_. _Naturally_. She could never truly _react_ at all, just _respond_. Events were perceived, processed to determine their importance, and then she responded appropriately. Ideal for a weapon, but woefully inadequate for a living, feeling _person._

So when Ruby offered to remove those damned restrictions, Penny accepted without a second thought.

There would be side-effects, though. Without the filter in place, "junk" sensory and cognitive data would steadily build up in her memory. Not that she was at any risk of running out of it; her memory banks were all but infinite, thanks to Ruby's most recent upgrade. The issue was that this data would, over time, "gob up" - Ruby's words, not hers - her cognitive processing. After about a week, this would slow down her thinking, make memory creation more taxing, and possibly even interfere with her motor functions.

Penny had been distraught until Ruby had explained the solution; she would simply need to allow herself time to process the junk data. In truth, "junk" was an unfair term, it was simply unused or unusable information, in the form of sensory input or thoughts.

Processing the data presented another issue, though. The amount of it Penny would need to go through was - as Ruby indicated via sweeping arm gestures - _extremely_ large. The data gathered over the course of an hour would, on average, require about 20 minutes for her mind to work through, and _that_ was if she placed every system not involved in the processing - her senses, motor functions, et cetera - on standby, both to allow more efficient information handling, and to prevent more data from accumulating as she worked. Otherwise, the task would take something like three times longer - an hour of processing for an hour of input.

At that point in Ruby's explanation, Penny had begun to make the connection. A knowing smile had crept onto her girlfriend's face as she explained, somewhat coyly, how Penny's mind would likely handle the combination of suspended sensory input and intense, undirected cognitive processing.

Between five and six hours of processing needed for a typical day.

Temporarily suspended motor control.

Hallucinations during processing, of varying clarity and often nonsensical content, which would likely be recorded incompletely, if at all, due to the rapid shuffling of memory storage.

Penny would, for all intents and purposes, need to sleep.

And when she did, she might dream.

She wondered what she would dream of.

A chirp from the computer drew her attention. The patch was in place; all she needed to do was step around the blocks. A warm hand gripped her shoulder and she turned her head, mindful of the thick cables threaded through the chair's open headrest, to meet her girlfriend's eyes.

"You ready, Penny?"

She nodded. "I am, Ruby. I believe I've been ready for a long, long, time."

Ruby squeezed her shoulder gently. "Then you know what to do. I'll be here, just in case."

Penny deactivated the delay.

For a moment, nothing changed. Then a wrench fell from Ruby's workbench, behind her, clanged loudly against the floor, and Penny jumped, startled by the noise.

Startled. She had been startled, and she had jumped, without meaning to. She had _reacted_.

The feeling was blissful. The paper-thin wall between her and her world was gone, and she was free, _free_ to react as she _felt_ , not simply as she knew she was supposed to respond. They went to Yang, Blake, and Weiss's home, and when Yang told a joke she _laughed_ , and all assembled turned to stare at her, astonished.

Ruby said it was the first time she had heard her laugh like that. There were tears shining in her silver eyes.

When evening came, they sat together on the oversized couch; Ruby curled against Penny's side, and Blake and Weiss pressed close to each of Yang's. They spent the hours watching movies, and Penny relished every jolt of unfiltered emotion, turned giddy at the way her body reacted to the scenes without prompting, without processing.

They returned home together, and settled into bed. Penny had always spent her nights with Ruby; she simply enjoyed the long hours of closeness. She loved to watch her girlfriend's eyes flicker beneath her eyelids, wonder at what imagined worlds she might be drifting through behind them. Now she would be joining her, in a way. Ruby ran a hand through Penny's hair, head propped up on an arm. Penny closed her eyes, though she technically didn't need to - Ruby had commented in the past that it weirded her out when they were left open - and suspended sensory input, for all but emergency signals. The world dropped away, just as she felt warm lips press against her cheek with a whisper of "sweet dreams."

She dreamt of flowers, blooming scarlet.


End file.
